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Saturday, February 23, 2013

One Down, One To Go

The show in Lakeland was a big success, at least as far as weather and lots of cool cars showing up. I was on the show field by 7:30 a.m. and Bob helped me get the car spiffed up and ready for inspection. We also met up with a lot of friends that we’d made at other shows as well as a number of friends from our club in Miami.

We had a number of people come by to look over the car. The thing that made it for a lot of people was my 1991 Uniden bag phone that I put back in the car. It doesn’t work, but they still thought it was retro-cool.

The bag phone

The show ended at 3 and soon we were on the road again, this time to Boca Raton where we’ll be judging at the Boca Raton Concours d’Elegance. Because we had to get to Boca, I didn’t stick around for the awards banquet, but a friend texted me to tell me that I had won my first Driver Participation Class plaque. It’s the first of many, I hope.

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2 barks and woofs on “One Down, One To Go”

What disconcerted me when I rode in the car the last time I visited was all the hard plastic interior. It’s what the dashboard is made of, what the inside of the doors are covered in too. I never realized how easily I could have broken my nose if you’d stopped quickly. How did we raise our family of four kids? I smoked while driving, you stood up behind my shoulder on the front seat, your baby brother sitting in a sort of car seat next to you. No seat belts, no crash protection of any sort. If I had to stop suddenly I threw out my arm to keep you from flying through the windshield. Still the world population continued to grow exponentially even with all this risk. Dumb luck?

You would not have broken your nose; you would have been wearing a seat belt with the shoulder strap. But yes, the cars that we grew up with were not designed for safety. Seat belts were an option until about 1965, and the things we take for granted like impact-absorbing steering columns, dual brake systems, crumple-zone front ends, and energy-absorbing bumpers (not to mention pollution control systems), were not mandated until the late 1960’s. Airbags became standard in the 1990’s (the Pontiac does not have them).

Auto fatalities are way down as compared to fifty years ago. But as Bob and I witnessed last night on southbound I-95 north of Boca Raton, stupid drivers are still with us.

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